Teachers' Perceptions of Students' Executive Functions: Disparities by Gender, Ethnicity, and English Language Learner Status

• In Event: Executive Functioning in Childhood

Abstract

We assessed whether students’ gender, ethnicity, and English Language Learner (ELL) status predicted teachers’ reports of students’ EFs, while controlling a direct assessment of EFs. In addition, we tested whether these associations changed between the fall and spring. Data were drawn from a school-based study of elementary students. We directly assessed students’ EFs, and teachers’ reported on students’ EFs in the fall and spring. Using path analysis, we found systematic demographic disparities in teachers’ reports of students’ EFs that did not change between the fall and spring. Given increased interest in incorporating measures of students’ EFs into measures of teacher accountability, researchers and practitioners should be mindful of the potential for systematic differences in teachers’ reports of EFs to emerge.

Authors

• Elisa B. Garcia, SRI Internatinal

• Michael J. Sulik, Stanford University

• Jelena Obradovic, Stanford University